About three o'clock the skies were dreadfully darkened and overcast. I had never seen such darkness while the sun was above the horizon; and still the rain continued to descend in cataracts, but at intervals. No man who had not seen the like would credit the description.

Then a very vivid flash of lightning, followed by an instantaneous thunder-peal, lightened up all the forest; and almost in the same moment the rain came lavishing along as if the windows of heaven were opened; anon another flash, and a louder peal burst upon us, as if the whole forest were rending over and around us.

I drew my helpless and trembling little boys under the skirts of my greatcoat.

Then there was another frantic flash, and the roar of the thunder was augmented by the riven trees that fell, cloven on all sides in a whirlwind of splinters. But though the lightning was more terrible than scimitars, and the thunder roared as if the vaults of heaven were shaken to pieces and tumbling in, the irresistible rain was more appalling than either.

I pressed my children to my bosom, but I could not speak. At the common shanty, where there had been for some time an affectation of mirth and ribaldry, there was now silence; at last, as if with one accord, all the inhabitants rushed from below their miserable shed, tore it into pieces, and ran with

the fragments to a higher ground, crying wildly, "The river is rising!"

I had seen it swelling for some time, but our shanty stood so far above the stream that I had no. fear it would reach us. Scarcely, however, had the axmen escaped from theirs, and planted themselves firmly on the crown of the rising ground nearer to us, where they were hastily constructing another shed, when a tremendous crash and roar was heard at some distance in the woods, higher up the

stream.

It was so awful- I had almost said omnipotent - in the sound, that I started to my feet and shook my treasures from me. For a moment the Niagara of the river seemed almost to pause- it was but for a moment for, instantly after, the noise of the rending of weighty trees, the crashing and the tearing of the rooted forest rose around. The waters of the river, troubled and raging, came hurling with the wreck of the woods, sweeping with inconceivable fury everything that stood within its scope. A lake had burst its banks.

The sudden rise of the waters soon, however, subsided; I saw it ebbing fast, and comforted my terrified boys. The rain also began to abate. Instead of those dreaded sheets of waves which fell upon us as if some vast ocean behind the forest were heaving over its spray, a thick continued small rain came on;

and, about an hour after sunset, streaks and breaks in the clouds gave token that the worst was over.

It was not so, however; for about the same time a stream appeared in the hollow, between the rising ground to which the axmen had retired and the little knoll on which our shanty stood; at the same time the waters in the river began to swell again.

The darkness and increasing rage of the river, which there was just twilight enough to show was rising above the brim of the bank, smote me with inexpressible terror. I snatched my children by the hand, and rushed forward to join the axmen; but the torrent between us rolled so violently that to pass was impossible; and the river continued to rise.

I called aloud to the axmen for assistance; and when they heard my desperate cries, they came out from the shed, some with burning brands, and others with their axes glittering in the flames. But they could render no help.

At last, one man, a fearless backwoodsman, happened to observe, by the firelight, a tree on the bank of the torrent, which it in some degree overhung, and he called to others to join him in making a bridge. In the course of a few minutes the tree was laid across the stream, and we scrambled over, just as the river extinguished our fire and swept our shanty away.

This rescue was in itself so wonderful, and the

scene had been so terrible, that it was some time after we were safe before I could rouse myself to believe that I was not in the fangs of the nightmare. My poor boys clung to me as if still not assured of their security, and I wept upon their necks in the ecstasy of an unspeakable passion of anguish and joy. JOHN GALT.

THE CHILD-MUSICIAN.

He had played for his lordship's levee,
He had played for her ladyship's whim,
Till the poor little head was heavy,

And the poor little brain would swim.

And the face grew peaked and eerie,

And the large eyes strange and bright,
And they said too late-"He is weary!
He shall rest for, at least, to-night!

But at dawn, when the birds were waking,
As they watched in the silent room,
With the sound of a strained cord breaking,
A something snapped in the gloom.

'Twas the string of his violoncello,

And they heard him stir in his bed:"Make room for a tired little fellow,

Kind God!"

was the last that he said. AUSTIN DOBSON.